


The Mask

by nerdrumple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2811821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdrumple/pseuds/nerdrumple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle knows approaching the Dark One is dangerous. So she'll just impersonate him instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotus0kid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotus0kid/gifts).



> For Rumbelle Secret Santa, lotus0kid prompted: Belle must impersonate Rumpelstiltskin.

“And this will help me to impersonate the Dark One?”

“It won’t _help_ , dear, it _will_.”

Belle looked down at the worn leather mask in her hands. It contrasted sharply with her own leather gloves; a dingy brown instead of her crisp black, some threads loose where her stitches were clean, signs of wear and regret where hers were fresh and new. _New_ , she thought, a fearful reminder. _I’m too new at this_.

She squared her shoulders. She knew what she was doing. She wasn’t stupid. This was for the good of the kingdom. Seeking out this enchantress, though, had made her feel equally as foolish as her father for wanting to seek out the Dark One. Yet here she was, in this unmarked cave she was positive didn’t exist yesterday, and standing face to face with the enchantress herself.

The woman before her was covered in a heavy dark hood, pure black underneath, and Belle couldn’t make out a single feature. All she had to rely on was the lilting voice, teasing in nature, high pitched and sharp. Every time Belle spoke the voice scratched back in return, but that wasn’t the most unnerving part. It was the hands that gave her pause; the hands left her questioning every conviction she’d made before coming out here. They glittered in what little light the cave had to offer, reminding Belle of scales, and the nails were black as though burnt.

Belle didn’t even know what the Dark One looked like.

For all she knew the Dark One didn’t actually exist, but there were enough whispers about him that surely some of them were grounded in truth. Belle was smart and sensible: she knew unconnected incidents could find themselves weaving together through the mouths of a gossip. A child abductor in the east is suddenly the same dark magic practitioner in the west. It was easy to pawn each story of terror or grief onto the same perpetrator, a supposed evil warlock who’d lived hundreds of years beyond anyone else’s capability. A demon, a fire worshipper, an incubus. A Dark One.

But then Belle had started reading. And the more she learned about him, the more she knew her father would be a fool to seek his help. Her books weren’t filled with outlandish stories or rumors; they were filled with sad tales. He was not a demon, he was a deal maker. And he always came out on top. He would give you your heart’s desire once you signed his contract, then snatch away everything you didn’t bother to read the fine print for. To seek his help now would be to trade in for true despair later. He was the imp, the trickster, the villain. The Dark One.

Her father would not rest until he’d made contact with him, gotten him to sort out the mess their kingdom had become as a result of the ogre wars. So there was only one thing to do.

“Interesting angle,” the enchantress said. “Impersonation! Very interesting. But why not just contact him yourself? I’m sure he’d come.”

“I don’t want him to come, thank you,” Belle said curtly.

A maniacal giggle escaped from the hood. “More fearful for your people of the Dark One than you are of the ogres, eh?”

“If you must know, yes, I am.”

“Why, pray tell? He could save your people,” the enchantress gestured wildly with her hands, “just like _that_ ,” she ended with a flourish and snap of her fingers.

“Yes, he could,” Belle said, unwavered by the advice. “But then we’d be in his debt. No one ever comes out of his deals in their own favor. All magic comes with a price.”

“Yes,” the enchantress said seriously, moving forward and resting a gentle hand upon the mask, “it does.”

As she said this, the mask began to change. Once of a feminine quality with eyes that looked toward heaven and a mouth opened in a yell of despair, the entire mask shifted downward – the eyes now a wicked crinkle of delight, the mouth the type of grin that suggested sharp teeth underneath. A long nose budded out where there had previously been none.

Startled, Belle held back her gasp, not wishing to make her fear known to the enchantresses. “And for it to work I just . . . put it on?”

“You just put it on.”

“But how will I know the correct mannerisms? How will I know how to act like him?”

“Have your people ever met the Dark One?”

“No.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry needlessly over it,” the enchantress said, starting to turn away.

“But,” Belle said, reaching out for the enchantress’s arm, “by that reasoning, why even bother to look like him?”

The enchantress turned around, dark hood casting a glare towards the hand on her arm.

“Because you can’t pull off devilishly handsome with those curvy hips.”

Belle cocked an eyebrow.

The enchantress made a small harrumph, then stepped closer to Belle, touching her lightly on the cheek, the intimate gesture causing Belle to stiffen. She couldn’t see into the hood even at this closeness, mere inches away. The blackness overcame her as it spoke.

“Because you have to rely on what they do know: he doesn’t look like _you_.”


	2. Chapter 2

That evening Belle brought out the mask again, after stowing it away in the trunk at the foot of her bed. She wasn’t sure why she’d gone to such measures to hide it; its discovery would mean nothing to no one, but the empty eyes of the mask seemed to follow her everywhere she stepped about the room, and the smile seemed to produce its own silent laughter, so she’d thrown it in her trunk. Night time had fallen though, and the black outside was like she’d seen under that hood, and it was time to see if what she’d acquired would actually work.

The mask had no strings to attach around her head and she wondered how she was supposed to keep it in place. She stepped in front of her full length mirror, noting her own features: long chestnut hair cascading in curls down her back, fair skin mingling easily with the white of her nightgown, full mouth that contrasted with sharp eyes. She could do this, she could do this.

She held the mask over her face, seeing her own reflection through the eyes. This is silly, she thought. _Do it_ , another voice said.

Belle lowered the mask onto herself, and choked with a gasp as a burning sensation started to take over. The burning was everywhere, not just her face, and seared itself across her, sizzling her nightgown away and punching the breath out of her lungs. It was all over quickly, though; in no time she felt normal again. Her breath had returned and the heat was a mere tingling across her new skin.

Her new skin.

In the mirror a strange creature stood before her. Human, surely, and a man, as she’d known the Dark One was, but she was surprised at her own handsomeness. She was strong but lithe, long and thin with angular features cresting her new face. Her eyes were large and her hair was shoulder length and wavy. A smooth chest scaled down to a narrow waist and taut stomach. Yes, Belle’s curvy hips wouldn’t have done for this experiment.

She was dressed, too. Tight leather pants and a loose fitting shirt with a dragon hide vest. A wide triangle of her chest was exposed and Belle smiled wondering if the Dark One carried a healthy dose of vanity in order to dress in such a way. She twirled around in the mirror, unsteady on her new legs but regaining her balance quickly. The strength in her limbs was tangible, and an idea sprung into her mind.

The strength wasn’t terribly unlike her own, there was just more of it, and the exhilaration of her transformation had left her giddy. She bounded around her room, jumping atop her trunk and then onto her own bed. She bounced a couple of times before she started laughing – oh, what a laugh! Her voice was so strange, she clapped a hand to her mouth for fear of hearing it again. But if she was going to pull this off, she needed to become comfortable with the new body, voice and all. “I am the Dark One,” she said aloud, surprised as she’d expected something deep and more menacing. Perhaps she wasn’t using it right.

“I am the Dark One!” she cried, but her attempt at _deep_ was comical and unnatural and she fell into a fit of giggles. “The Dark One, the One Who is Dark, the Darkest of all the Ones,” she muttered, deciding the voice was lovely just the way it was, the scratch beautiful and its own form of menacing.

She hopped off the bed, landing with a thump and realizing she was being quite noisy. She quieted herself and listened for any movement or voices outside her door. When none came, she smiled and ran an experimental hand over herself. She’d never touched a man before – it was strange having hard planes instead of breasts and firm muscle where she was used to softness. She peered into her own trousers – goodness, it was on the front, and not directly between the legs the way hers was. That made it easier to walk, no doubt, and walk she did, the strides coming naturally and she found herself sauntering about the room in a confident swagger. She had to reach down and rearrange it occasionally. The pants were very tight, after all.

She stood in front of the mirror again. The strange new man stared back, and she was too aware of Belle beneath it all, so she tried to think of how the Dark One would stand, hold his head, use his hands. She tried standing tall with her head back and her hands clasped behind herself, but it looked wrong. She tried hunching and bringing her hands up like claws, but that just felt ridiculous. She ran her hands through her hair and pushed out a sigh. She couldn’t concentrate, she wanted to dance around the room and reach into her pants again, but she reeled in her silliness and decided to close her eyes. Let it come naturally, she thought.

Once her eyes were closed and the man in front of her was gone, it was easy to search through her mind. And that’s when she realized: her mind felt new. She was still Belle, her mind was well aware and intact, but it was like there were new doors to open, new corridors to explore. They were dark and waiting, so she reached for the first one, and—

There was a boy, young and screaming, falling down a hole, she was losing the only person she’d ever—

There was a man, laughing at her, calling her a coward, pushing at her, laughing, laughing—

There was woman, wearing a look of disappointment so profound that it was eating small pieces of her, one by one, there wasn’t going to be any of her left—

Belle shot her eyes open, a gasp escaping her. She looked in the mirror. There, that was how the Dark One stood. Cocky self assurance to hide the years of regret and despair and loneliness. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest. She looked down at her hands – they glittered slightly in the light of her fireplace, and the nails were black.

Belle reached up to rip the mask off her face. It felt like a face at first, and like she was clawing at nothing but the bare flesh of her cheeks, but then, _pop_ , there it was, the mask in her hands. She looked back up at herself, naked in the mirror. She hid the mask back inside the trunk.


	3. Chapter 3

She was ready, she decided. After several nights of practicing her words and gestures and demands and just how she’d address her father, she was ready. She had let the mask affect her completely, she simply let her body flow with the rhythm the mask seemed to pump through her, and the persona of the Dark One came naturally. Or, at least, what she assumed was the persona of the Dark One. It took some practice, finding him in her mind, and sometimes she stumbled upon frightening things, but more often she stumbled upon sad things, and only once or twice, happy things. Both centered around the boy.

She and the mask had become quite acquainted. There were nights spent talking to herself in the mirror, nights spent building her body confidence more thoroughly, and even a handful of awkwardly hands-on occasions in the bathtub, but she reasoned that in the end it had all been with _herself_ , so now she felt ready to carry out her plan.

And she felt confident in her plan. Surely? Surely.

Belle’s attempts at surety had carved themselves into her garden path. She’d been pacing around the rose bushes all morning, going over the logistics of what she was about to do. She was becoming distracted. The mask had taken a toll on her, had become something akin to a book in how absorbing it was. She knew the boy was his son, and that he’d lost him in favor of power. That phrase came so simply, _in favor of power_ , but it didn’t paint the situation correctly. There was so much fear behind it, so much agony, it burned her every time she thought of it. And she thought of it often, putting on the mask just to explore the Dark One’s mind.

She knew his name now: Rumplestiltskin. She’d known it before, but this was different. Because Rumplestiltskin wasn’t the Dark One, wasn’t the imp, Rumplestiltskin was the spinner, the shy and timid man he’d been before the curse of the Dark One fell upon him. And Belle quickly found herself becoming obsessed with the man.

With a swallow, Belle admonished herself to go back to her plans, go back to saving her kingdom, and no longer dawdle in the private affairs of the darkest wizard ever to grace the land. She turned to head back towards the castle, but bumped into a servant instead.

A male youth stumbled backward, gripping his cap before it toppled off his head. His eyes were so wide and glazed over Belle wondered briefly if the poor thing was sleep walking. He was certainly muttering something incoherent.

“Are you all right?” was all Belle could think to say, reaching for his shoulders to steady him.

“Message,” the young man was saying, “message for the Dark One. To be delivered immediately.”

He was pushing a roll of parchment towards her, a message tightly bound in twine and containing the royal seal. Once it was delivered into Belle’s hands the servant seemed to fall out his trance, a great blush overtaking him as he realized he was so near his master’s daughter, and he dashed away from her without a look back.

Belle stared after him, parchment gripped tight in her hands. What had just happened? She knew her father sent a plea to the Dark One every day, but today it was being delivered to her.

“Why?” she asked aloud.

_Because you’re the Dark One now, dearie._

It took Belle a moment to realize she’d spoken that last bit aloud too, and in her own voice, turned crooked to sound like his. And the thought did not sound like an invasion, but rather an extension of herself. She shook her head from the sensation, and tried to swallow down the feeling that it hadn’t been unnatural, that it hadn’t been unwelcome.

She opened the message and read through its contents quickly, then again, with careful purpose.

“No wonder he won’t come,” Belle wondered aloud. “We’re offering him gold. He _makes_ gold.”

Belle crumpled up the message, and the voice echoed over her again. _I require something more precious._

Belle shivered, and started carving a new path into the garden.


	4. Chapter 4

Belle fingered the mask nervously. She was naked in front of the fireplace, knowing better now than to allow the mask to sizzle another one of her nightgowns away. The warmth of the fire kept the nipping cold behind her at bay. But she’d yet to put the mask on. She held it in front of her, seeing her reflection in the mirror through the eyes, not wanting to watch the transformation tonight. Despite all her personal reassurances, she didn’t truly feel ready.

Mask in hand, she muttered a last prayer and slid it onto her face. Once the burning and sizzling had finished, she blinked several times, shook her head and clenched her fists, open and closed, until the body felt like hers, and she could complete the task at hand. Don’t think of him, she told herself, don’t think of the spinner, don’t think of the boy. You are the Dark One, complete your task. But when she looked to the mirror, she stifled a gasp. Standing in front of her wasn’t her reflection as the Dark One, but the enchantress.

“It’s you,” Belle said with a note of wonder in her borrowed voice.

Stepping from the mirror, Belle hopped backwards as the heavily hooded figure approached her.

“My,” the enchantress said, “don’t you look dashing!”

The figure in front of her was striking a pose she’d struck before, Belle thought with amusement. The movements of the hands and the placement of the feet. She was tempted to giggle, but held her tongue, instead doing her best to calm her thumping heart and asking “What are you doing here?”

The flames of her fire danced light and shadow over the figure in front of her, but still no light penetrated the hood. So it was to be a guessing game, then.

“Here to check on your progress,” the enchantress said, then, with another trademark flourish, “going to commit the deed tonight, are you?”

“Well, I was –”

“Was?” the enchantress interrupted. “You’re certainly taking your time about this, aren’t you? You’re starting to make me question your plans. Perhaps,” the hood swooped in close, “you’re just trying to learn the monster’s weaknesses.”

Belle scoffed. “He’s not a monster.”

That gave the hood pause, but it quickly turned away from her. The way the hood turned was familiar; like the original Dark One, Belle realized. The creature who had tricked the man into this curse, into this existence. She didn’t have to wonder how much of the man in front of her was the Dark One and how much of him was the man he used to be. They were a mixture, one she was now terribly familiar with.

“What are you going to offer your father, when you go to him?”

“Plans,” Belle said simply.

“Plans?” the enchantress said flatly.

“Battle plans,” she clarified. “My father refuses to listen to me, but he’ll listen to the Dark One.”

A low chuckle escaped the hood. “So that’s what this is. A desperate plea for attention from Daddy.”

Belle narrowed her eyes. The conversation was a game to the enchantress, she knew, but she didn’t want to play. She felt an itch in her to touch the figure, to comfort, to pull back the façade. _I know what they did to you_ , she wanted to say.

“Of course not. He’ll never know it was me, that’s the point. It’s not for him, it’s for the people—“

“A hero!” the enchantress called out with another flourish. “Do you picture yourself brazen in the heat of battle, hair flowing from your exertion, sword blazing through the air?”

“You make it all sound so ridiculous,” Belle said. The enchantress was getting to her, and she needed to reel in the anger that’d just been provoked. The Dark One delighted in anger, she knew. He used to be so angry, and hurt, but now he wielded anger and hurt like power. She wanted to set down the weapons, and smooth the Dark One’s face with her hands.

“It is ridiculous,” the enchantress said, walking around the room, running a hand over Belle’s mantle, fingernails scratching a ragged path over its hearth. “I’ve given you more than a disguise, dearie. Why don’t you just magic the ogres away yourself?”

Belle blinked. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t have . . . are you saying that I can perform magic with this body? Real magic?”

The hood drew close, a grin peering out of its angles. “Why not?” the crooked voice repeated.

“Because . . . I don’t even know where to start, I don’t even know—“

“It’s just flexing the right muscles, dearie,” the voice chided. “You just need to know which ones to use.”

The enchantress reached forward a hand, brushing it down Belle’s arm, and she felt it, a sharp heat coursing through her. She pulled her arm away with a gasp.

The hood chuckled. “Don’t have the taste for it?”

Belle didn’t answer. She was too busy focusing on the black nails that had scraped against her own. She knew little of magic, had only glimpsed it in the memories of the Dark One, so she pulled to them now, remembering just how he’d become the Dark One . . . it was a curse, she knew, and that’s where the magic truly came from, but it also pulled itself from a place a of pain, a place of despair, a place of anger . . . so she thought of the boy, brought his face to the front of her mind, and . . .

A funny blast of blue and purple came out of her hand, dousing the fire and sending the room into black and cold.

The hooded figure stiffened for a moment, then relaxed with a laugh, clicking its fingers and lighting the fire again, to a blaze more fervent than the previous one. “Very good,” the voice said. “Again.”

“Again?”

“And focus. Focus on what you want to do. Something far less . . . blasty.” The hood drifted back over to her fireplace, grabbing a trinket from the mantle. “Float this back over there.”

It took several attempts and one or two more awkward blasts that both extinguished the fire and then accidentally exploded a chair, but soon she was floating the trinket to the mantle with ease. And repairing the chair.

“You can do anything,” the hood mused, “even be rid of those pesky ogres.”

Belle grimaced at the word _pesky_. It was too light a word to apply to the death and destruction of her friends and family. But the figure was right; she could feel the magic coursing through her, ready to listen, ready to act where she commanded it. She was aware that it was a sensation separate from her own mind and body, that it only existed in the part of her that was the Dark One. Once the mask was gone, so the magic would be too. She looked down at her hands, wishing she could will them to simply rid her people of the ogres now, but she knew it didn’t work that way. He was teaching her magic the way he’d taught others magic, but he was the one who was in control, she knew. She could see the faces of previous students flash before her, and none of their stories ended well. And each one was being trained, being trained to find . . .

“Bae,” she whispered.

The hood turned sharply towards her, and Belle bit her tongue, daring the enchantress with her gaze to confront her. But the hood remained silent and dark.

“So you’ll go to your father tonight,” the hood started, “and offer him your _plans_.”

“Yes,” Belle said softly.

“And what will you take?” the enchantress said, voice dark.

Take. That’s right, the Dark One always took. He lost and lost for so long, but now that he had power, he took and took. It’s who he was, it’s why people came to him.

Belle’s mouth opened to answer, but then an idea sprang to her. “Gold,” she said.

The enchantress scoffed. “Gold,” she said, with a sigh. “The Dark One never accepts gold.”

“I know you don’t,” Belle said, “But father doesn’t know that. He writes to you desperately everyday offering gold.”

“Well, the sniveling sod should know by now that—“ the enchantress stopped. “What did you say?”

But Belle didn’t repeat herself. Instead she reached for the figure’s hands, lacing them with her own. They were the same, clearly, the scales and the black tipped fingers. She caressed a thumb over his, letting him know that _yes, I know. I’ve always known. Didn’t you want me to?_

With the other hand, Belle reached up to push the hood back. It pooled at his shoulders, but the strange dark cloud covering his face remained. With a snap of his fingers, the cloud disappeared and there he was, the face she’d been getting to know the past several days, the glittering skin she’d lived in, the eyes that, for once, she wasn’t hidden inside. Because this wasn’t her impersonation, this was really the Dark One before her.

Knowing that he was simply staring at a mirror image of his face, Belle reached up to remove the mask, gasping as its magic pulled back sharply off of her. When he could see her, the true her, his eyes were squinted in question, and something like disbelief.

It was different seeing the real him, the one she’d been rifling through the memories of and getting to know. Her face warmed at the sight of him, and she found herself smiling. Something in the back of her mind was trying desperately to remind her that he didn’t know her the way she knew him, that leaning forward wasn’t his natural reaction the way it was hers, but she was leaning into him anyway, brushing her lips over his, and, after a moment, he kissed her back.

As she kissed him, she felt a wave pulse through her, something that started in her fingertips and rushed up to her mouth, something warm and full and conscious and happy, and it was expecting to meet something similar in his own lips, but it met nothing, instead it stopped against his wall, and the wave crashed back down.

“Rumplestiltskin,” she breathed softly, once she was aware enough to pull away.

He stared at her, disbelief firmer than before, but mixed with a quiet awe. And then, eyes roaming, “You’re naked,” he breathed back in surprise.

“Of course I am,” Belle said with an embarrassed smile. “The mask sizzles away whatever I wear. Ought you to know that?”

“Funny, I seem to have forgotten.”

 _Funny, I seem to have forgotten._ It was something he’d said to Milah once, long ago, after she’d admonished him for not returning home with the correct things from market. But he’d tried to make it playful, _please forgive me_ , the words truly said, and he’d attempted to touch her, first running his hands down her arms then again over her stomach, and she’d let him for a while before brushing his hands away and leaving him cold.

Belle felt a special connection to the spinner the Dark One used to be, and she could just make out his features through the wavy hair and scaled skin. His sharp angles were still there, and so was the pain in his eyes. She pulled the memory of Milah forward, remembering all that the spinner had wanted to do to her before she’d thwarted his advances. Belle wouldn’t thwart him, the tender man he once was.

Belle picked up Rumplestiltskin’s hand and placed it around her waist, encouraging him to rub her the way he’d tried to rub Milah. She ran her lips over his forehead, cupping his face until he’d brought his lips up to her again. This time when he kissed her it wasn’t stiff, and while it wasn’t quite like the spinner she was remembering, the edge his kiss held was for her and her alone, and that knowledge pressed her forward.

She could feel him pressed against her, straining beneath his tight pants at her thigh. Her knowledge of lovemaking came solely from his memories, and the desires of his unfulfilled wishes, all explored through the mask. She felt them keenly in her belly, mask or not, and as she led his hand down between her legs to let him know that she truly did want this, that she truly felt these things for him, she heard him gasp at the wetness, disbelieving but approving, and he kissed her deeper.

Until he was pushing her away.

He looked afraid, that careful façade finally gone, but instead of understanding he wore a face of confusion and a bite to his eyes suggesting he’d snap at any moment. Belle moved away from him, flushed red from her boldness, and walked over to the bed where her nightgown lay waiting for her. Pulling it over her head and letting it slide down her lithe frame, she made her way back over to him, noting that he hadn’t seemed to have moved a muscle.

She watched him with careful eyes, trying to make sense of him as best she could. She’d been inhabiting his mind for days now, but she never saw herself through his memories. It had never occurred to her to try. She’d have to pursue this the old fashioned way. “Why are you helping me?” she asked.

That seemed to rouse him from his trance. He shook his head, then looked to her again, and she frowned as she watched his wickedly gleeful persona reappear with the same control she derived from the mask. “Well, I can’t have impertinent little girls playing with my reputation now, can I?”

And it hit her. _Impertinent little girl_. That’s what he’d called her, in a book, one night when she was researching him. She had scoured her mother’s library, finding all she could on him, but every time the information seemed to change, seemed to shift before her very eyes even though she’d been reading the same paragraph she’d read the night before. It had occurred to her then, briefly, that he was likely powerful enough to alter the passages, and just as she’d thought it, the words appeared: _of course I can, you impertinent little girl!_ She blinked once, twice, and the phrase was gone, having changed into some frivolous sentence about how the Dark One wasn’t to be feared at all, for he was simply a figure that brought toys and candy to all the little children of the world. She’d rolled her eyes and shut the book.

So she had roused his attention. By reading up on him, by repeating his name quietly in the dark, by tracing her finger in her lap at night in a drawing of what she thought his face looked like. He’d taken an interest in her. It was as simple as that.

He never answered her question. Just stood, and let the cloak he’d been wearing disappear into thin air. He was wearing the same clothes she always did when she put on the mask, the leather pants and the flowing shirt and the vest. There was something breathtaking about seeing the real him in front of her, the way he truly spoke and moved, sauntering over to her in a towering way even though they were nearly the same height.

“I’m not completely unaware of what you’re up to, you know,” he admonished, and the way he was looking at her made her keenly aware of the thinness of her gown, let alone that she’d been naked and kissing him earlier.

His statement held the tone of closure in it, and he turned around, making his way towards the mirror, but not actually stepping into it. “Go to your father, give him your plans,” he said, then, turning abruptly, with something between a grin and a frown on his face,

“And stop sticking your hand down my pants.”

With that, he disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, with little sleep under her belt but a heavy dose of determination, Belle found herself standing with the mask again in front of the mirror. After last night’s humiliation and admonishment, not to mention magic lessons, Belle knew the time for dawdling was over. She put on the mask.

Once satisfied with the body in front of her, she sighed, and relished the feeling of his sound pushing through her lungs. But when she looked at the mirror again, she saw that she wasn’t sighing at all, but standing with her arms crossed and an amused expression on her face.

“You’re fond of mirror entrances, aren’t you?” she said.

He chuckled low and nodded curtly, stepping forward from the mirror. She quickly reached up to pull off the mask, wanting to confront him as herself rather than his doppelganger. He watched her quick transformation with interest, not pulling his eyes away when her naked form was before him, but snapping his fingers to cloth her quickly in a gold gown she knew he’d never seen her in before.

“If you keep interrupting me, I’m never going to complete my task,” she said, trying her best to hide her blush but failing terribly.

He gave her a long look, and walked around her like he was sizing her up, making her feel naked despite the gown he’d given her. When he came to her face again, she pushed her chin up in an attempt at courage.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said in a voice that was so like his old spinner self that it gave her pause. “You can be yourself. I’ll approach your father today, if you’d like.”

The offer drew her up in surprise. “No,” she said, “I have to do this. It’s important that I do this, that I finish this. Please, let me.”

He gave her another long look, seeming to come to terms with something inside himself, then nodded in such a way that the sad look in his eyes dissolved, and he was once again the Dark One. The simple transformation that showed in his facial expression made her mourn.

“Then give him your plans,” he said, rounding to the other side of her so they both faced the mirror. “Use my magic to make them real, make them work.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t have faith that they’ll work on their own?”

“Don’t want to risk you dying, dearie.”

The honesty caught her off guard, made her mouth go dry. “But isn’t that cheating?”

He smiled and shook his head. “If guaranteeing that your people no longer perish at the hands of the ogres seems less important than instilling some classroom moral code of _no cheating_ , then by all means, back down.”

Belle bit her lip. “You’re very infuriating, sometimes.”

He smiled at her, something charming that managed to touch his eyes. “Right back at you, dearie.”

He kept calling her that. She knew he called everyone that, and she’d used the word plenty of times when she’d been in his body, but it felt different now, somehow.

“Remember,” he said in her ear, “you have to take something. The Dark One always takes.” He held up the mask for her, and before it had a chance to rest in both her palms, he was gone.

When Belle had collected herself and managed to head towards her father’s chambers, she expected them empty. Or at least, she’d have preferred them that way. Instead they were filled with men, each shouting something vague at the other, upset because another part of the kingdom had been decimated by the ogres, bringing them closer to their own door. _Avonleah has fallen_. The knowledge brought a pit to her stomach, but she pressed on.

She felt the Dark One so keenly around her, mouth connected to bone and eyes and marrow and will power that acted like a muscle. Her misgivings about her plan had faded away, and now a wicked grin crossed her face as she pounded on her father’s chamber doors.

At her entrance, all quieted down. Rumplestiltskin was a short man, no taller than Belle’s own stature, but as each stare withered under hers, she felt the power and the height of what it truly meant to be the Dark One.

“It’s him,” one man muttered, “he’s come at last.”

She recognized the voice as her betrothed, Gaston. She felt the Dark One twist at the knowledge.

“I received a message,” she started, “several, actually. All pleading, _help, help, we’re dying, can you save us?_ ” It felt strange to mock the pleas of her own people, but Belle couldn’t help it, the mask clung too tightly to her face and its vivacity brimmed just beneath the surface.

Gaston had drawn a sword towards her at her tone, something a lesser man like himself considered wise. Annoyed, Belle swatted the thing away. “And the answer is, _yes_ , I can. For a price.”

“Yes, yes,” her father nodded, eager. “Of course. Yes. We have gold.”

“Ah ah ah!” Belle said, waggling a finger through the air, “I don’t want your _gold_ ,” she said, making the word sound like a curse. “I require something _far more precious_.”

“Yes, yes,” her father said again, preferring the useless words in favor of a pause. She could see now that he’d been aware that gold was a petty offer, but that he’d been hoping desperately to get away with it. It filled her with a rage, something strange in her fingers, and she felt Rumplestiltskin’s body glow at the madness, turn it into something else, something she could use.

“Precious, of course,” her father said. “I can offer my wife’s jewelry, her gems, her crown. You can have it all. Please, for the sake of our people.”

The offer surprised her. She could tell it’d been premeditated, and that made her, as Belle, affronted. But she could feel something else as Rumplestiltskin, or rather, the lack of something. The great lack that this promise meant to her father, that of her mother’s things. He held no actual sentimental feeling in them. Whether the attachment had never existed or whether it had faded over time, she couldn’t tell, but she could feel the hollowness of the offer, and it tasted bitter in her mouth.

“No,” she said simply, darkly.

Her father sighed, running a hand over his mouth. He looked the Dark One in the eyes now, and she saw how terribly afraid of her he was. That things weren’t going to work out in his favor after all. “Lands, then, the lands in the north.”

“Already ravaged by the ogres,” Belle said hotly, slowly.

“The villages in the east? From the end of the bordering river to the walls of Avonleah?”

Belle raised her eyebrows. “You’d rid the villagers of their homes? Are you no better than the ogres?”

“Please,” her father begged before her. “At least they’d be spared.”

Belle looked down at her father with something of disgust. She wasn’t sure if it was Rumplestiltskin’s emotions or hers anymore.

“No,” she said again. “My price is far greater than land I have no use for, however willing you are to split up with it. I’ll take,” she tilted her head and flashed a wicked grin, and she felt something overcoming her, something wild pushing at her. The magic, the magic making its own demands, or perhaps the Dark One overriding her own will, or her will overriding the Dark One. It was a strong sensation, beating at her until she finally spoke.

“Your daughter.”

A heavy silence hit the room, something weightier than her initial entrance.

“My daughter?” her father gaped.

“My betrothed?” Gaston called from the corner. Gods, she’d forgotten all about him.

She felt the magic burning low in her body, ready at any moment to follow her will. “Yes. Belle. Your daughter.” She turned to Gaston. “Your _betrothed_.”

“You can’t,” her father sputtered. “You can’t, you . . . _beast_.”

Belle did her best to appear affronted at the name. But she felt something again, a fear overtaking her father, and the fear made her sick. It wasn’t the fear of his only daughter being taken away from him, but that he was going to be bested by the imp. A sense of failure and embarrassment were overwhelming the man, and while it made Belle hide inside of herself with despair, it made the imp come forward and bare his teeth with glee.

“Your daughter,” she said, “or you’ll all die at the hands of the ogres. Including her.” This knowledge, as she spoke it, suddenly rang true inside of her. If she hadn’t pursued the Dark One the way she had, in her own way, so very separate from her father’s, they would all likely be dead soon. She tried to keep the flicker of terrible realization from her face.

Her father wet his mouth with a nervous tongue once, twice, then, “So be it.”

A maniacal giggle of wicked joy jumped from Belle, and she even managed a dance step or two as she clapped her hands. Unfurled from her hands came the very plans that she, as Belle, her true self, had drawn up before. She laid her plans before them, and worried for a moment that in this act she would reveal herself to her father. She’d tried to show him these very plans before, but he’d brushed her aside. There was a sting in her gut as his eyes widened with her words and his smile grew at her designs—as though he was hearing them for the first time. He’d clearly ignored her before, obviously, but the sting of the rejection was brought on anew as he was clearly more keen on whatever answer the Dark One would give them than that of his own daughter.

“And this, this will work?” her father asked after he and the men had gone over all the Dark One had laid before them.

This was the moment Belle feared the most. For being able to walk and talk like the Dark One came with ease now, and being able to command the room with his presence—but could she perform his magic? While her nerves were racking her? But at her father’s question, she realized her nerves were calm and at ease, and she felt it, the low humming of magic deep in her belly, dark and frothing, ready to be unleashed. She could do it, she realized, and the magic _wanted_ her to.

“Of course it will,” she snapped, with a sharp toothed smile. She thrust the battle plans forward, and she felt it, felt the magic in her belly leap out and through her, making their deal complete, making it real. It would save the kingdom. The plans would work. Everyone, her friends, her family, would be saved.

“Congratulations on your little war!” she teased, letting the meeting end with another cruel giggle. High pitched and chiming while she left the room in a flourish of purple smoke.


	6. Chapter 6

She didn’t go back to her room. She was unsure if servants or knights or her father would be rushing to her rescue. She was unsure if anyone would be rushing at all, instead satisfied with the deal they’d struck to save the kingdom, or too afraid to jinx it by approaching her. Whether her room was a flurry of activity or not, she wouldn’t go back, she couldn’t go back.

She’d magicked herself to the cave, the only place she could think of. She let herself fall to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest, and letting her head fall down to be cradled by her legs, before she simply slumped over, giving in to great sobs. All the sharp grins, cruel words, black nails and harsh laughter had caught up with her. It racked through her, and she pulled at her hair, until she remembered it wasn’t _her_ hair, and she tore off the mask, throwing it across the cave and burrowing her head in her knees again, tears running down her nakedness. This was better, though, she was Belle again, and would no longer have to inhabit all the weight of what it meant to be the Dark One.

“All magic,” a voice said from the darkness behind her, “comes with a price.”

He was here, of course he was here. She felt him kneel behind her, place his hands on her shoulders. “It is done, then?” he asked.

“It is done,” she said, forcing her sobs aside so she could be understood. “I’ve saved my people. They will be safe, thanks to you.”

He did not offer a _you’re welcome_ nor did he deny the claim, but his arms curled around her, and his face was somewhere near her shoulder, and he’d magicked clothes for her but she’d hardly noticed them. Instead she turned in his arms, trying to get a glimpse of him. His face was neutral, and in an expression that required no hard lines or glinting teeth, and in it she saw the spinner he once was.

“I know you,” she said. “I was invasive with the mask. I explored you, and I know you now, and I can never turn back from that,” she wasn’t sure if the confession was for him or for her, but it was coming, nonetheless.

“I know about your son, I know about your unfaithful wife, I know about the dagger. I know how this happened to you,” she grasped his hair, and he let her, staring at her with that same neutral expression, and it frightened her more than his anger would. “Please,” she said, “I know I can’t perform magic, I can’t cast your spell for you, but I can help, I know I can. Let me help you find Bae.”

He closed his eyes at the sound of his son’s name, and reached up to smooth her hair.

“I’m sorry if it’s wrong,” she cried. “That I know you, and you don’t know me.”

“You think I don’t know you?” he asked.

“The mask,” Belle said, “it opened you up to me. Like a series of doors . . .” she tried her best to describe it, tried her best to ask if he’d somehow been able to do the same each time she put on the mask.

“No,” he shook his head, “not the way the mask could. But I saw you, I watched you,” he said.

“I think I, I think I –”

“You _think_ , but I’m a difficult man to love.”

“This isn’t terribly difficult,” and she reached up to kiss him, and he let he let her, though his movements were hesitant at first, and she felt that swelling again, rising from her belly now, large and overwhelming, meeting him at his mouth. It wasn’t met with a wall this time, but it wasn’t met with a similar swelling either. It was met with a spark, something small and initial, and it was enough to make a small smile curl inside her, and for her to push her hands into his hair.

He pulled her up into his chest so she was resting in his lap. He was kissing her back with a solid sort of conviction, something she’d glimpsed earlier when he’d appeared in her room. Like he’d made up his mind about hiding from her, like he’d accepted the affections of a wiry girl as his truth now. Though, the way he was touching her, she didn’t feel wiry.

His hands smoothed over her back and hips, her arms and her stomach, and the memory of Milah returned, that desire he held for her, never satisfied, always treated like something to be ashamed of. She laughed softly through a watery smile, and grabbed his hands, kissing them fervently, palms and then wrists, before placing them back on her. And then she reached forward to do what she always wanted to: smooth her hands over that bare triangle of chest he was so eager to expose.

He shuddered at the sensation, and she saw doubt cloud his eyes, and his mouth start to open in protest.

“No,” she said, “it’s all right.” She had to crush the self doubt and loathing before it was allowed to take root. He didn’t believe anyone could love him, she knew that.

“I know you,” she whispered into his mouth, “I know you now and I know who you were then.”

He nodded slowly at her words, until she took his face in her hands firmly. “Okay?” she said.

“Okay,” he said, voice small but a smile was there, like her spinner.

She seemed to have freed him from whatever hesitations he held, for with a sigh and a shake of the head he was soon attacking her throat with kisses and bites and nibbles, and she smiled broadly at the attention. He moved his hands up her ribcage, and she realized their clothes had been magicked away, as she didn’t feel the cloth of his shirt anymore, nor the texture of his trousers. She looked down to see, instead, his length pressed firmly against her stomach, and she was awed at the sight. His skin held that glittery scaled look all over, and she marveled at it.

He cupped her breasts, running tentative thumbs over her nipples, closing his eyes to the sensation. He pushed her back, careful to cushion her head from the hard cave floor, and brought his mouth to her chest, taking a breast with his tongue, sucking on her nipple like it’d been something he wanted to do for a long time. The way he moaned, and the way he cupped the other breast with fervency, told her it was something he’d definitely thought about more than once.

She ran her hands over his back, the smoothness of his supposed scales not lost on her. With a careful hand he moved between her legs, gently rubbing her inner thighs and prying them apart. Her stomach fluttered violently from anticipation, but he stopped short.

“You’re a maid,” he said, pulling back.

That’s right, she was. In her acquired memories of sexual experience she’d forgotten that her own was nonexistent. But each touch felt right, like it was igniting memories of previous touch, only this touch was longed for whereas previous touch was found repulsive. She reached for his hand, placing it back between her legs, letting him feel her wetness again like he had the night before.

“Please,” she said, and he nodded into her throat, pushing his fingers in and letting out a strangled gasp. She echoed him, the sensation of his touch within her sending jolts up through her belly, and making her hips push into him involuntarily.

Milah hadn’t been an active participant in their couplings, and she recalled a memory of her beneath him, disinterested and deriving no pleasure though he was trying desperately to give her joy. It hadn’t always been like this for them; there had been excited fumblings when they were younger, but she’d long grown disillusioned with her tender man, instead wanting something rougher that he couldn’t quite give her.

Belle didn’t want what Milah wanted. She pulled Rumplestiltskin to her, until they were laying on their sides and she’d hooked a leg up over his hip. She took hold of him, rubbing him at her entrance and over her clit, that part of herself that she’d seen the spinner able to ignite in Milah, and it held a great ignition in her, sending bursts of pleasure, dark and hot, through her abdomen. She rolled them so she was on top, chest to chest and her hand still snaked between them, rubbing him from her entrance to her clit, back and again. He moaned and gripped her hips tightly, trying to stop himself from bucking up into her.

“Together, with me,” she whispered so quietly into his forehead she worried he didn’t hear her. But he felt her lowering herself down, and his cock pushing into her folds, and he moaned from the sensation, fingers gripping so tight into her hips it was painful.

He was trying to say something, but the words were jumbles, nothing but gasps and moans as he shifted his hips lightly up and down, pushing gently in and gently out, and she lowered herself deeper onto him as much as she could take, an inch at a time. The chest to chest position allowed the fuck to be a gentle one, intimate as she kept interrupting his gasps with kisses, and pushing down on to him until she was filled at her own pace. She rolled her hips gently, feeling the head of his cock deep inside her rubbing a part of herself that had her shaking and biting down onto his shoulder. He kept pushing himself up, and she shifted her legs to straddle him gently on either side of his hips. She started to unabashedly drive her hips onto him deeper, delighting in the friction it ground against her clit.

A flash of more memories hit her, not the ones he shared with Milah, but the ones she shared with him, of the way he’d looked at her in the mirror, of the tender way he’d cupped her check when he first met her, in this very cave. His eyes, large and wide, became soft under her as she looked at him. When a shudder began to overtake her body, starting in her belly and working its way out to her legs and arms, she crushed her face into his throat, gasping several times, and he gripped her hips tighter than before, pushing bruises into more bruises as he started to drive up into her at an erratic pace, taking advantage of her clenching muscles to find his own release.

She could feel the coolness of the cave against the sweat of her back, and pulled back to get a good look at Rumplestiltskin, who was pushing her hair back behind her ears and smoothing it away from her forehead. He kissed her lips and her nose, before muttering, with a funny glinting grin, “The deal is struck.”  


She let out a silent, gasping laugh. “It is.”

“And what did you trade for?”

“His daughter.”

His eyes widened, and a slow smile played across his mouth. “What makes you think the Dark One wants her?”

“Doesn’t he?”

He cradled her to him, legs pushing up around her hips.

“He does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this Rumbelle Secret Santa journey! It was great being your Santa, lotus0kid! This is the end of the story, the rest of the chapters are just extra smut I wrote and was unable to find a suitable place for in the story . . .


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some Belle & the mask voyeurism smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't include this in the original prompt because it kind of broke up the flow of the story and I was short on time to make it fit. So, it's simply thrown here, for your pleasure.

The heat of the bath felt wonderful, and for a brief moment reminded her of the burning sensation that overcame her every time she put on the mask. She had started taking the step of undressing before putting it on; it had already destroyed more than one good nightgown, after all. For reasons she wasn’t yet ready to admit to herself, she had brought the mask with her to the tub. She’d excused her maids as she usually did. She preferred to bathe alone. She liked it that way because it allowed her to explore herself in a location more open and sensual than underneath the covers of her bed, where she sometimes felt closed off and ashamed. She didn’t want to feel ashamed with the mask.

She’d propped it up on the table beside the tub before she’d stepped into the water, and had watched it while she brushed out her hair. The eyes that had once been crinkled in cruel mischief had started to look wide in amusement these days, or perhaps Belle was imagining things. The mouth, too, usually a wicked grin, had started to take on a quality of awe. Belle found herself staring at the mask the longer she stroked her hair, and was overcome with the desire to remove her robe. She’d be doing so eventually anyway, but the thrill of undressing directly in front of the mask was overwhelming.

She let her robe fall from each shoulder until it was sliding down her back and pooling on the floor. She reached for the brush again and cast a glance at the mask, pulling her hair to one side so the curve of her neck was exposed. She finished smoothing all the knots out of her hair, in slow and even stokes, tossing her hair behind her when done in order to run the brush over a few times more, from root to tip, now that the brush could run smoothly. She arched her back as she did, displaying her pert breasts, raising her hands over her head to fluff her finished hair. She took the brush and let its bristles scratch gently down the skin of her neck and collarbones, then down to her nipples, where the rough feel sent a shiver through her. She set the brush aside.

She piled her hair atop her head, and poured herself into the bath. The heat of the water tingled against her skin, and she looked up at the mask. It had originally been angled towards her while she’d been brushing her hair, and the shift to where she’d been sitting and where she was now lounging in the water wasn’t a great distance, but it was enough that she noticed the mask was now at the new angle, a better one to get a view of her in the tub. She smiled softly.

She grabbed the soap, and started with the easy destination of her hands, lathering them up slowly. She ran the soap along her neck, between her breasts, and soon she was arching again, running the soap from her breasts to her stomach and back again, until she was spending a silly amount of time on her breasts. She set the soap aside and let her fingers do the work now, massaging and kneading her breasts, just the way she liked to touch herself, until she was pinching her nipples and eliciting small gasps from herself. The mask leered on.

She could feel impatience budding within, and a steady blush of equal embarrassment and thrill riding over her. She wanted to touch herself very much, but had done so little often that she found herself terribly nervous. She snaked a hand down between her legs, and was unsurprised to find herself already swollen and sensitive. A small flick had her trembling, a second made her gasp, a third had her moaning softly. _Don’t stop_ , a voice said. Was it hers, was it his?

She’d never reached climax before. She’d read about it, overheard maids gossip about it lewdly, but had never experienced it before. The only reason she knew what to do to herself now was for the very same reason: overhearing, overseeing. She once caught a maid touching herself, her hand up her skirt and her head thrown back. The maid had been wiggling her hips as though she were in a race with herself, and it looked like she was pushing herself as hard as she could down onto her own hand. Some books had informed Belle that it had been fingers, to be exact, or perhaps an object long and slender that had been hidden from Belle’s view. Usually Belle pulled these facts to the front of her mind when touching herself, building the courage and excitement to do the same touching to herself, the touching the maid had done. She wanted to wear the face the maid had been wearing when she’d sputtered out a cry and convulsed in what Belle would have confused for pain had she not been watching all the aforementioned wiggling and pushing.

She had always been too afraid to put her fingers inside of herself, though. The idea frightened her, but tonight she felt courage blooming all over her, with the mask watching. She ran a tentative finger along herself, feeling a heat and wetness different from that of the water in the tub, and was tempted to simply rub the bud that felt the best like mad instead of pursue any true thrusting, but she pressed on.

The pad of her finger entered herself more easily than she thought it would. She felt open and slick, and the realization she was actually doing this made her press her finger in deeper. She gasped, she was in up to the bend in her finger, and she was touching a spot that sent tiny dots to her vision. _More_ , a voice said, and she pushed in up to her knuckle. That was it, in one swift motion she understood the movement to make, and started pushing back and forth, from the bend to the knuckle, from the bend to the knuckle. Such a small movement, but it was rubbing the little spot she’d just discovered, and sent her shivering until her stomach was drawing tighter and tighter and tighter and she was unconsciously straightening and bending her legs. _The other hand_ , a voice said.

Yes! She could rub and thrust at the same time. She brought her other hand down, meaning to softly flick, but found herself furiously rubbing at her nub, so much so that it increased the pounding of her hand. It’s going to happen, she thought, what happened to the maid is going to happen to me. She looked to the mask, and as she locked eyes with it, her belly knotted hard, all her muscles tensed and she felt a wild spasm rock through her. She let out a gulping gasp, but kept her finger inside herself, pushing as deep as it would go, and felt herself clamp around it, the sensation amazing. It rocked through her for several moments, and she heard a low, agonized moan. It took her the remaining moments of her climax to realize it both was and wasn’t her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . aaaaaaaaaaand next I’ll post the chapter of Belle-as-Rumple smut.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was posted all at once a year ago for Rumbelle Secret Santa, and these last two chapters tagged onto the end are simply smut I didn't fit in to the original prompt. After going so long not posting the end to WAM, I guess I'd forgotten to add this particular last chapter as well. Oops?
> 
> Well, here it is, the last of the smut I didn't fit into the original story. Belle discovering & enjoying her body as Rumple.

Well, damn. She was naked.

She’d started naked, of course; she had to if she ever wanted to keep a good nightgown again. But once the sizzling of the mask had subsided she should have been wrapped firmly in leather and a dragon hide coat, or at least a flowing shirt. But the reflection in the mirror, Dark One as it ever was, was as naked as she’d started.

She looked down, somewhere towards the claws of her upright mirror, and thought. What had she done wrong? This experiment had always provided her with clothes. Sometimes lavish, sometimes on the lavish side of practical, but always _there_. She couldn’t possibly approach her father now. She had no male clothes in her bedchamber and her nightgown was out of the question. Coaxing a servant to undress wouldn’t do; her father would expect the Dark One to be dressed like the _Dark One_. Had she any furs laying around? Perhaps she could steal some pants and cloak the rest of herself in some furry cloak ensemble.

The look she received from her reflection in the mirror simply told her all was lost for the night.

“I can’t leave the room,” she said, and the way her voice intoned with his male scratchiness made it feel as though the body agreed with her.

She’d started off with a funny habit of considering the body separate from herself, something she merely took a ride in. But she flexed her fingers, and coaxed her eyes up to meet herself in the mirror. “I,” she repeated. “Me.”

This wasn’t her body, but it was _her_ , and she didn’t want this night to go to waste.

The voice was feminine in a sugary way when she let it be, a tone that suggested distaste and the ability to overpower with little effort. She thought of his favorite word. _Dearie_.

“Dearie,” she said, but it wasn’t right. “ _Dearie_ ,” she trilled, the _r_ belonging to her tonight, and she mimicked his movements in the mirror, the ones she’d been practicing, realizing with a small amount of disappointment that without boots it was harder to hold her stance. They must have had a slight heel she’d given little thought to before now.

“Dearie!” she said again, letting her mouth curl up and her fingers gesture in a fluid motion, one hand ending up by her face with the other by her opposite elbow. She held her eyes in the mirror again, impossibly large and dark, and something electric went through her. She didn’t simply like _being_ the Dark One, she realized she _liked_ the Dark One.

The hand by her face brushed a finger over her jaw, and the other one cupped her elbow until it was bumping her stomach. I’m so smooth, she thought, despite the scales. Her eyes moved over her face and down until it was glancing between her legs.

Oh god, had it moved? It was surely bigger than a moment ago, a little more filled out and chubbier than usual. A similar burning sensation was racing to it that she felt when she was aroused in her own body, and her mind flashed to the evening she’d spent pleasuring herself in the tub while in view of the mask. There! It had moved again! It had just twitched at her thought. And it had grown fuller still!

“Oh, dear _ie_ ,” Belle uttered, dropping her stance and turning away from her reflection, but it did little to help. She took a deep breath or two, but it was too late, it had been activated. She looked down at her hands, then up again as it was down there as well, just beyond the view of her fingers, and it wasn’t going anywhere.

Another breath or two. You’re being silly, she decided. You know you can’t do this.

Well, why couldn’t she? It was _her_ , wasn’t it? Her body? She bit her lip, and pondered sorely over the idea of a reversed position: if the Dark One could transform into her body, how would she feel if he touched it? Would she feel frightened, violated, angry? One part of her nodded in vehement agreement while the other merely led a hand down her stomach.

She gasped and pulled the hand away. Another breath, deeper this time, and letting out a longer huff.

If the Dark One were here, and their two separate bodies faced each other, clothed or not, she’d be tempted to touch him, this she knew. She’d start with his face and get him to look at her squarely, then she’d move to his neck and that consistently exposed part of his chest. Goodness, would he let her touch him? There was a warmth in the thought, something like invitation. It glowed in her head and expanded out to her limbs. She turned around again.

She hadn’t quite let herself admit just how much she liked his body; just how tempted she was to undress completely at some point during this experiment. The thought had originally felt juvenile; a childhood curiosity of what it would be like to be a boy. She’d looked at it right off, of course, but told herself that was that.

Facing the mirror, she looked at her face, and at her cock. It was rising, and she understood the word _erection_ now. But she wouldn’t start there, if she was to do this. She’d do it properly.

She stepped close to the mirror, as close as she could get, and truly looked at her face. When it wasn’t offering some cruel smile and its eyes weren’t crinkled in mocking it was something gentler, something sadder. She could see it, the memory of the spinner underneath the scales, the soft brown colors of the hair, skin, and eyes now set to a confusing ashy golden-green hue. Memories of inadequacy littered her mind; the spinner in his youth comparing himself to the other boys ribboned in bulk and muscle all over their skeletons, while his bones couldn’t muster more than the layer of flesh required to keep them covered. She laughed at that reasoning, finding him silly, finding him endearing. He didn’t see what she saw. She didn’t simply like the way he looked, she _loved_ it.

The thinness nearly suggested kindness, though she was aware body style was no indicator of personality. She felt it, though, in the curve of her jaw and the plains of her chest. She caressed her shape, her ribs and collarbones, then back down again and, _oh!_ Her nipples were just as sensitive as those of her female body.

Her fingers splayed over her face, running down the sharp nose while her thumbs played with the angle of her cheekbones. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was able to note her mouth starting to water, saliva pooling and making her bite her lip while closing her eyes. She promptly opened them again, the gesture being quite lovely, and she watched herself closely as she repeated it a few times. She cupped her ears gently, tracing their shells and tugging on their lobes. She arched her eyebrows once, twice, and a third time with a laugh for how much it lightened her expression, and let her fingertips pad along her forehead and hairline before simply dropping her hands down and stepping back to enjoy a full open view of her male body, embarrassment no longer curbing her.

She leaned forward, hands smoothing down her thighs, and _oh_ , the muscle there felt wonderful. She went as far down as the calves before arching up again, growing brave enough to reach around and caress her rear. The curve was quite different from the _Belle_ she was used to, and it left her groaning slightly. She bit her lip again to keep the sound at bay, unable to help a smile at how much that particular gesture reflected back to her in the mirror sent her blood aflame. She squeezed her rear, eliciting laughter that required more lip biting that led to more pleasure coursing through her from the sight.

Hesitation caught her only for a moment before she reached for her testicles; their soft, thin skin and rounded shapes drifting in the sac a pleasant weight in her palm. She hadn’t expected the pleasure holding them would bring, and she sighed something long and needy.

She held up her left hand and then her right, studying the lines in the palms and fingerprints and wishing she understood more about what their shapes meant. But that particular shape at the front of her was catching her eye again and calling for her. Her right hand ran down along the smoothness of her stomach again, a gentle finger following along a line of hair just barely visible to her eyes but felt clearly under her touch.

The erection was rigid now, jutting and leaking lightly from the tip. It burned, it felt tight, but in a brilliantly pleasant way. It needed attention, though. Its head, smooth and large, smirked with a pride that suggested it _knew_ perfectly well that it would be touched again, that being ignored simply wasn’t fathomable.

Staring down, she realized the separation she felt wasn’t necessarily between her and the Dark One’s body, but this specific body part. Even the Dark One’s flesh, knowing all around her, seemed to consider this part of itself strange and apart. It was something not normally paid attention to, something that catered to no whims and received no affections. But Belle, no longer inside the Dark One but feeling completely the Dark One herself, felt a surge of joy at the sight of it, his cock, _her_ cock! So with a tentative hand, she wrapped her fingers around the base.

She choked out a sigh, unaware that she’d been holding her breath, and removed her hand quickly, only to replace it just as quick.

What felt best? Gliding her fingers over the member or gripping firmly and moving the flesh along the muscle? She experimented with both, one feeling wonderful while risking chafing if she went too fast and the other providing wild bursts of lust if she kneaded just right. New parts of her were igniting, parts she never thought about. Her testicles were jerking to life, pulling in when a tug was especially pleasant. Some parts were more sensitive than others - where the lines of the head swooped in to meet at the cock’s opening - right there if she rubbed just so, with the aid of the bead of moisture leaking from her, it brought her to involuntary moaning.

Muscles tightened and spasmed in her male body similar to the way her female body reacted to pleasure. Stomach muscles pulling taut, the cheeks of her rear clenching and an insatiable desire to throw her head back and expose her throat. She wondered briefly if these responses to pleasure were her own, and would react in any body she was inside, or if she and Rumplestiltskin simply had similar reactions to being touched.

She had expected the pleasure to be centered, to focus only on the long member in her hands and radiate out once climax was reached. But the sensations were running all through her. A hand along her chest felt wonderful, fingers scratching her scalp made her teeth grit. The cock felt like the helm simply because the sensations burned hottest there, and the desire to thrust was incredibly consuming, but she could prolong the sensations if she caressed other parts of herself. It was easy to do, she admired her body so, but she longed deeply for this activity to be a duet rather than a solo.

She leaned forward against the wall, her forehead pressed to the cool stone, helping her to regain some of her mind. But her senses rebelled, wanting nothing more than to be set alight, and a voice was with her, his voice, _surely_ , deep and caressing, urging her on. It didn’t speak words or assurances, it was simply there, smiling as she lost herself to her own touch, stroking harder and faster and losing all pause for appreciation as she simply enjoyed herself.

She stroked, she thrust into her hand, she brought her other one down to cup her balls again. She choked and gasped, she opened her eyes wide to watch herself, _stroke stroke, pump pump, thrust, ah, deeper, more!_ She pictured him, Rumplestiltskin behind her eyes, his hands and his face, then that chest she loved. She pictured herself, her own wet heat, and how marvelous it would be to pound into it. Their limbs entwined, wouldn’t it be perfect? Her female legs wrapped tight around her male waist, thrusting into herself, testicles pressed close to her rear the deeper she got, that female throat exposed while her male teeth bit into it, hard like her thrusts.

It happened then. She came violently, spurting against the stone in front of her, frightening herself. She was tempted for a moment to cut off the stream, to pinch the head, but when she did she found it cut off part of the sensation. Releasing her seed, letting it flow and hot and free, was part of the orgasm. She let it carry out, streaming down the stone and caring little for the time she’d have to take later to clean it up.

Her forehead pressed closer into the stone as she came, painfully, and her body jerked and spasmed with a shout. She gritted her teeth and grunted, the sound both his voice and hers, but knowing now what he sounded like in the throes of orgasm felt so intimate and beautiful, she allowed her mind to separate itself from her male body and enjoy it from her female perspective as Belle watching Rumplestiltskin.

It started to fall limp in her hands, each heavy pant of her breath seeming to help shrink it back down as her energy was spent. With another gentle tug or two the remains of her seed deposited themselves into her hands and she slumped to the floor. The orgasm had felt huge, simply gigantic and she couldn’t hold herself up any longer. It was different than her orgasms as Belle; her female body could warm up and fall down again in a matter of moments, over and over again if she allowed herself, but her male body felt so terribly worked that she wasn’t sure she even had the energy to remove the mask. If she didn’t want to terrify her chambermaid, though, she knew she ought to take the precaution. The white spurts dribbling down the wall above her would be enough to frighten the poor girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahem.


End file.
